As a creative, I am always flirting with new ideas. Constantly developing new projects, whether that be painting, writing, research, or learning new skills. Yet I cannot shake that I am a philosopher and a deep contemplator of morality. No matter how many times I try to spin the narrative of my current circumstances the quote from Dr. King Jr. pierces through me like a bullet. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.". I don't want to be difficult; I need to be difficult. For in times of increased violence, the lines between right and wrong become also become increasingly obscure. I cannot accept what is happening to me passively. 

I want to express my deepest love & gratitude to those who have gone to extreme lengths to help me pierce the veil of my current circumstances. I can even assure you when I fight back it's is in the spirit of protecting the generation of even those who are oppressing me's children. 

My circumstances are increasingly particular. So I am going to take a chance. The projects and things I have done are part of a much larger project. A project that I am devastated to not bring to fruition. But now that I have created demand I must withold the supply until I am adequately compensated for the work I have done. So that you guys get tastes of the larger symphony I am conducting I will be uploading the drafts of the beginning to some of the stories I have in mind. 

This was never a pursuit driven by the desire for wealth. But the reality of it is these stories take time. The literal act of writing, contemplation, seeking inspiration, and research. I actually have been rushing to apply pressure. I want to hold the quality of my work to a higher standard and that is going to look like paying for team members to help me edit and format. So, with no further ado, the beginning of an anonymous story I have in store for you all. 

Copyright 2024 D.Hernandez All Rights reserved.

This piece of writing belongs to D. Hernandez and D.Hernandez alone. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

 

If On A Summer's Morning A Traveler 

1

 

This world is more beautiful with my eyes closed. When I am just listening. Of all the senses, the eyes are what trick us the most. Especially as we navigate streams, rivers, and oceans of thoughtlessness. I cannot help but see blankness in the eyes of strangers. Some attempt more; I feel solidarity in their pursuit. Perhaps, all I am attempting to do is more as well. The blankness of strangers is reflected in me. I am but a blank page of possibilities.

At least I was. Now time has taken it’s ink and spilled it all over me. I hop scotch throught the blank pockets of my routine. It is in the brief instances of choice, is where I doubt the fact that I am destined for a life of sadness. What shirt to put on. Do I tie my right lace or left lace first? Brush my teeth before or after breakfast? Do I bother having breakfast? Should I put cream in my coffee? What about sugar? 

Beyond that these subtle glimmers of hope vanquish into dust. The moment I put my key in the door, I am the mercy of experience and memory. Nothing ever changes. 

I walk my three blocks to the train station. Take the blue line for about half an hour to Grand Central. Ride the six train to sixty ninth. Get in my elevator; ride it to the thirteenth floor. I ask the secretary at the front desk of our office how she is doing as I enter. She always responds with, “Another day in paradise.”. Something about that sentence makes me want to jump out the window. Nose dive head first into the sidewalk. 

I wasn’t always like this. When I first came from New York, I don’t think I ever even noticed the sidewalks. My head was always perched back imagining the views from the top of the sky scrapers. When it happened is uncertain, but imagining the view from above only began to emphasize how small I was. That time was making me smaller. This is a stange paradox that only I seem to notice. Perhaps, others notice but they have found a way to remain unbothered by it. Experiencing experience expands us, but our opportunities shrink. 

I don’t mean opportunities in a conventional way. Not new career or vacation or friendships. Though once you’ve discovered true comfort these can diminish as well. I am learning now, on my forty eighth birthday that you can in fact become comfortable in your own sorrow. 

Opportunities in the most metaphysical sense of the word. The ability to be suprised. To encounter an event or an emotion for the first time. This encounter revealing an element of yourself that was hidden in the shadows. With enough time we uncover all there is to uncover. We may go as far as uncovering too much and we see ourselves for what we are. Infinite beings trapped in finitude. Forced to let go of the depths of ourselves to conform to the shallowness of societal standards. 

All that is natural and bountiful about the human experience must be kept at bay. We are beings of appetite. Though the greeks believed a man good survive off of one olive a day. How we compromise ourselves is relatively the same. How we manage the pain of these compromises is the conception of modern identity. Some drink. Others do drugs. Many seek the validations of others. I never saw much hope in these. Though I am only human, so I inevitably sought relief in these areas as well. It was there; I forgive those who rely on these methods. I felt the alleviation that we all seek, but when the alleviation would wash away the suffering returned with the amplification of regret. 

No, I have come to manage the dehumanization of myself is to dehumanize others. I am in no way cruel. In fact, I am quite sensitive to my own pain and can only imagine the suffering of others. None of us have it easy.

I dehumanize others in the sense that I value nothing they can offer me. Unless, they are a musician. Music is how I manage the belittling of my soul in order to survive in society. Specifically, classical music. 

My childhood was my childhood. My mother was a pianist and my father worked on an apple orchard. There is a song in my heart that remains colorful and yet invisible to my ears. My mom would play it daily. 

Apparently when she was young, she was a prominent jazz player in San Francisco. She was also studying law, but threw everything away when she met my dad. He was a hippie, driving from the east coast to the west coast. When he recounts his time on the road he always says, “The bug of movement had bitten into me and infected me with it’s magical disease.”. There was a fire in his eyes that no musician could witness and not follow. 

My dad stayed in her dorm for three months, the longest he had stayed still for four years. In those three months she became pregant with me. When he found out he bought the first ring he could afford and they got married in the local courthouse that weekend. My mom’s brother was the only witness. 

I was born in San Francisco. My mom had dropped out of law school to work a regular job while also playing the piano at night at the jazz clubs. For the first year of my life I was almost always with my father. He couldn’t find work, but had received some inheritance from the passing of his grandfather. 

Apparently I was an extremely colliquy baby; there is only thing that would ever sooth me. My mother’s music. So, my dad would take me to the club’s at night and somehow the guys at the door would let him in with an infant. He used to say I would immediately calm down when we got in the car. As if I knew where we were heading. He would stand in the back, bouncing with me in his arms, and just listening. I would slip into a deep sleep.

My mother journalled religiously. When she died I was about nine years old. My dad wanted to burn everything, including some original compositions and I begged him to let me have them. He agreed on the condition that I never spoke to him about their contents. Nor did he ever want to see them. I was to keep them hidden. 

She was a curious woman in her youth and head over heels about my father from the moment she met him. But it was clear her separation from me and the lack of infrastructure from abandoning academia was making her depressed.

My father had a friend who offered him work back in North Carolina where he grew up. It was on an apple orchard. My mother sold all of her belongings, including her piano. They got into my dad’s Plymouth Roadrunner, another thing he inherited from his grandfather, and did one final roadtrip east. As a family. My mother wrote about it as if her were the happiest time of her life. The open road and selling all her belongings liberated her. She felt like she could finally be the mother she wanted to be. 

Unfortunately, that’s not how depression works. Their roles had reversed, but my mother’s sadness continued to hover over her like a shadow. I continued to be colliqouy and without her piano there seemed to be no way to calm my cries. 

My father saw the toll it took on her. He filled the home with flowers and vinyls. Listening to music seemed to help her, but she needed to play. She described hearing music everywhere she went. She’d leave me inside and sit on the front porch and compose symphonies in her head to the sight of fields of grass. 

Then finally, when I was about three years old, between the money he had saved, what was left of his inheritance, and selling his car (He had no ambition for the road anymore and rode his bike to work everyday either way) he somehow managed to find her old piano. He bought it and had it shipped to the house in North Carolina. She wrote: 

“It’s true what my love told me about North Carolina. The beaches are cleaner and the water is warmer. It has it’s own beauty and charm, but up until this very moment it has been empty. I have been empty. The very sight of my old piano has filled my lungs with life. The only time I have felt joy like this is when I pushed young Theo out of me and brought new life into this miserable world.”

I was named after Thelonius Monk. 

There is not a single memory in my mind of my mother’s sadness. She was a heavy drinker, but always in a good mood. Always laughing. When I think of her playing the piano, I have no memory of her playing jazz. Through her journals I have some sense of the type of jazz she enjoyed from her journals, but I never her play the piano that way. Shortly after the piano got delivered she bought all the sheet music she could find on Choplin. Until she died six years later she would only play Choplin. For hours and hours. A glass of whiskey or two resting on the lid of the grand piano. 

I would sit on the stairs and watch her. She didn’t like having an audience, but I was fixated on her eyes. You would think, watch the fingers of the piano player as they confessed and I surely did; I just don’t remember her hands as well as I remember her eyes. 

They were filled with so much when she played. I felt so much when I’d look at her from that staircase. She would become so much more. Now I know that what I felt was the endless bounds of her sorrow, but then it was just a feeling. A feeling that penetrated so deeply that I would feel as though we shared a pulse. I suppose at one point we did. 

The amount of hours I have spent listening to recordings of Choplin, from various musicians, in search of my mother is insurmountable. Nobody comes quite close to the songs of my memory, but when I listen it’s as if she is there. Not fully, but I recongize her more in those recordings than I do when I look at old photographs. 

This search for my mother has given me an obsession with classical music. It’s become how I manage the compromise of self I have made in order to survive in society. I am not interested in small talk. Nor am I particularly interested in words. If I could communicate with my colleagues at work strictly through email I would. Or communicate with them somehow non-verbally I would. 

I have come to understand my routine so well that I begin a specific album everyday at the same exact time. “Hilary Hahn Plays Bach”. I begin the album so that by the time I arrive at the office or at my desk (it’s an approximation) one specific song plays. Violin Parita No. 2 in D Minor. 

I keep my headphones in all day. Listening to classical music all day. Usually a variation of sting quartets because they help me concentrate. But I need to begin my day with this song. I put the volume on my wired headphones at full blast and sit there patiently. I follow the violin inward. 

It is there that I feel aligned with the grief of my existence. When I find that, I feel whole. It is a gentle boat ride into the depths of myself, where with enough of distance I can see the lonely mountain of my life. The shadow that casts below. 

When this violin guides my reflection I am able to appreciate for the length of the song how beautiful my life has been. I am also able to accept my quarrels with happiness. For as long as I have been able to reflect on the fact that I am a feeler of feelings, I have been able to understand that happiness does not come to me as easily as it comes to others. 

It took me a long time to grasp that this notion didn’t make me lesser. It has always isolated me, but isolation isn’t a disqualifying characteristic of enoughness. 

It wasn’t always the case. When I was eighteen, I was happy. Happy for an entire summer, but even then my happiness wasn’t within me. My happiness was another person. And people leave. 

This song better than any other song I have discovered aligns myself with the truh of my being. In it I become the sorrow, the pain, the grief, and loneliness that has come to define who I am. This is why I must listen to it. It’s only when I have this profound sense of self can I be productive at my job. 

I am a paralegal. I have been since I graduated college over twenty years ago. I studied sustainability management which definitely wasn’t popular back then. But working at the apple orchard with my dad during the summers made me passion about nature. So it only made sense that I got a job at a nonprofit law firm that goes after oil companies and takes up law suits against deforestation. I also minored in Music Theory. 

Two years after my mother died, the silence of our home became consuming. My father made the same exact meal every night for dinner. Chicken, rice, and beans. One day as we are shoveling it down, the taste was manageable as long as you eat quickly, he just looks at me and says, “I have something to tell you.”. This was the first time he had spoken so directly to me. The last time he spoke like this, while looking me in the eyes, was to tell me that my mother had died. 

“I can’t go on like this. I am too tired after work to learn any new skills, but you have time after school. You’ve got almost four hours by yourself everyday. I need you to start stepping up, or else we just aren’t gonna make it, kid. There are two things I think this house is demanding of us. We need to start eating better. Your mom had boat loads of cook books around the house. Start digging through them. You make a list of what you need and I’ll get it. But moving forward you’re responsible for making the meals. They will be bad at first, but nobody is good at anything at first. With some time you’ll be a natural.”

I remember not giving this much thought. My dad never asked me to do anything and this felt like a task I could accomplish. I read a lot of comic books at the time, how different could it be. 

“The second thing this house is demanding is music. Everyday I walk by that damn piano, I can remember the noise it used to make. It’s torturing me. If you’re up to it, I found a piano teacher who is supposed to be one of the best in the area. I already spoke with him and he said he can come by everyday around four o’clock. He isn’t cheap, that’s for sure, but with your mom’s life insurance money I think we can get by for a while. It won’t last too long, but I can’t imagine her wanting us to spend it on anything different. Shit, I am sure if your mother was alive she would teach you herself. How does that sound, Theo, you up to learning some new skills? It would help me a great deal.”

Cooking was easy enough, but the piano felt different. It’s the only way I had come to know my mother. I didn’t wanna get in the way of that. I was also scared. What will pressing the same keys she used to press do to me?

“I’ll cook, but can I think it over? The piano lessons?”

It was a Thursday. He told me to tell him by Saturday so he could contact the teacher. When I came home from school on Friday, instead of going straight to my room to read my comic books, I sat at the piano all afternoon. After about two hours of just staring at the keys and flipping through sheet music, that just looked like foreign scribbles to me, I began to slam the keys. In a spontaneous violence. It sounded chaotic and horrible and miserable, but it was liberating. Somewhere between the jamble I felt like I could hear my mother’s laughter. 

I went to bed that night without dinner, and when I woke up in the morning I asked my dad if I could go to work with him. I spent the day shadowing him. Carrying the basket of apples he had picked from the trees. When we began to spread water in the rows, he told me take my shoes off. As the cool mud began to seep between my toes I told him I wanted to play the piano. He just smiled and told me he will call the teacher tonight. 

I met Jacques that Monday. He was a French Canadian from Quebec. He never shared much more about his life other than that. We worked together everyday for six months. Then three days a week for the rest of the year. His standard for artistry was perfection. He taught me how to read sheet music very quickly, but it was taking time for my fingers to align with my eyes. He would sit next to me with a yard stick and smack my hands any time I missed a key. He frequently reminded me of my worthlessness. My inability was a display of that. 

One day my father came home from work and I had taken some rope from the shed. I tied a noose and strung it to a tree in the back. He came out back looking for me, to see me standing on a tree just staring at the empty space in the loop. He sprinted to me and took me in his arms. I couldn’t speak. 

I took a bath that afternoon. It must have been long because my father grew impatient and bursted into the bathroom. He began to yell. 

“What are you trying to do to me!? Don’t you understand that I need you!? I can’t take another loss, not after your mother. You’re all I got, kid. Don’t you know I love you!? What has gotten into you!? It’s not normal for kids to do such a thing.”

“I’m sorry.”, I uttered in my bare vulnerability. 

“You’re sorry! That’s all you’ve got to say. What’s gotten into you? Don’t you know you can tell me anything?”

So, I did. I told him everything. All that he didn’t want me to tell him. That Jacques was making me touch him if I got it wrong too many times. It started over the pants, but it was getting worse. Jacque had told me that he was going to recommend to my father that we go back to everyday. I didn’t think about what I was doing, the news just brought me there. For a long time I was able to block it out. I was able to forget what Jacque had done to me. 

When I was thirty, I had been playing classical music at a restaurant on the weekends. Being a paralegal was a good gig, but it was New York and some extra cash never hurt. The owner of the restaurant was a frenchman and he loved the way I played. We had known each other for years. The entire time we had known each other, he had always pushed me to learn some DeBussy. On this night, it happened to be the tenth anniversary of the resteraunt opening, so I decided to surprise him with a DeBussy song. 

It only took about a week to learn, but throughout the whole process I felt a strange sense of resistance. Like there was bubbles in my lungs. 

Finally, the night arrives and I see my boss looking at me. There is a glow in his eyes like no other. His pride radiated throughout and I sat at the piano with conviction. I began to play Clair De Lune. His ears perked in my direction. 

When I got passed the intro I felt a tremble from the deepest recesses of myself. As if I had built a wall without my knowing and it was beginning to fall apart. Each note was cracking it. With each crack the fluidity of the entire human experience came spewing through. Every addition made it harder to resist until finally, I fell apart and I was a gorge of emotion. As I continued to play before me was Jaques touch, the apple orchard with my father, my mother playing Choplin, Mrs.Libertalia compassion, Alice’s touch, Rick’s hands, the words from my father’s lips, “She’s gone, kid.”. And there I was. All alone with DeBussy guiding me. This was the song Jacques so desperately tried to teach me. 

There was the song that everyone hear and the song that I felt. Tears streamed, as I walked the path. No! There was no “I” to walk, it was just the path. When it was finally over, I stared at the keys for some time. Eventually walking to over my boss he grabbed me. 

“That was incredible,”, he noticed my despair and liberation, “are you okay, my pianiste?”

“No. I, uh, I am sorry.”

“What are you sorry for, my pianiste? I have never seen such a passionate performance. You were incredible. DeBussy, my pianiste! DeBussy! Thank you. Thank you.”, he held me and shook me. Our embrace felt pure, but nothing could stop the flow of emotions I was feeling.

“I quit.”
“Why do you say these things?”

“I can never play the piano, again. I’m sorry.”

I left and never went back. I rode the subway that night never wanting to let go of what I had just found, but I had only found it because I had fully let go. This sensation of understanding my pain and immense forgiveness was being dragged away by the mindlessness of the New York underground. In it’s place came a lurking disgust and sense of betrayal. 

Along with the memory of abuse came the memories of trying to forget the abuse. Pleading with my father to not kill Jacque. That I still needed him too. Finally, of moving on. Of not talking about it at the table. Of not having anything to talk about at the table. 

After four months of firing Jacque, I began playing again. I tried reading Choplin’s sheet music that my mother had left behind, but there seemed to be a block that I couldn’t move past. No matte how much I tried to read it I could not. This is around the time I began to hear music playing in my head. Despite my best efforts I could not execute. 

Another four months went by like this, until finally I asked my dad to find me another teacher. After the situation with Jacque he had found God. He was going to Mass every Sunday. He would ask if I liked to come and I’d say no. I could tell he was devout and I always appreciated him not pushing it on me. When I’d say no he’d always respond with, “That’s alright, kid. If you are meant to find God then he will find you.”

Mrs. Michelle Libertalia was an older widow who played the piano in the choir of my dad’s church. She taught algebra at the local catholic parochial school. My dad approached her asking if she was interested in making some extra cash. She took him up on it. 

She could only come twice a week, but under her guidance my ability flourished. She didn’t seem to concerned about my block in reading sheet music. She was convinced that it happens sometimes and that it would come back to me. Instead of playing from sheet music, she would play a segment on the piano then have me repeat it. 

“Don’t worry too much about mistakes, my dear. Life is all about making mistakes. Instead of worrying about the sound being perfect focus on being it freeing. Don’t follow my fingers, my dear. Just listen carefully and then follow your heart. If it’s close that’s good enough. It’s far more important you play in your heart.”

This open approach was so different that it took me a few sessions to adjust. When I finally did it was so liberating. Not being stressed about mistakes was a tremendous weight off my shoulder. She only made one correction and she would do it very consistently. 

“You don’t play music by slamming the keys, my dear. There is enough weight in your hands for the sound to come through. Stop pressing and just let your hands drop, my dear. Stop trying to proclaim the song and fall into it, my dear.”

 

Copyright 2024 D.Hernandez All Rights reserved.

This piece of writing belongs to D. Hernandez and D.Hernandez alone. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.